Business and Personal Services Businesses and professionals engaged in providing services, such as credit collection, advertising, accounting, and automotive repair, to businesses and individuals. Construction Hotels and Lodging Resources related to the hotel and hospitality industry. Manufacturing Public & Investor Relations The public relations business provides services to promote products, persons, or companies. The investor relations industry strives to increase the shareholder base of publicly-owned companies. Publishing & Media The publishing of books, magazines, newspapers, and other printed materials and dissemination of information by means of the broadcast media. Resource Development Industries related to the usage, processing and distribution of natural and other resources. Retail Trade This category represents the interests of professionals and businesses engaged in the selling of goods to individuals. Utilities Electricity, gas, and other utility services. Other Industries Resources in this category: You can also view Magazines, Associations on the Net under this heading.   Center for Business Planning http://www.businessplans.org/ "The Center for Business Planning provides any business manager or entrepreneur with a set of resources to help in creating a business or managing a business. Information is provided on every area of planning a business including: acquire venture capital, define new products, market analysis, competitive analysis, production management, tax problems, legal issues, prepare financial statements, write a business plan and much more."     Corporate Affiliations Mergers and Acquistions http://www.corporateaffiliations.com/Executable/cn_mergers.asp The Mergers and Acquisitions page is a free resource on the Directory of Corporate Affiliations site, a subscription-only guide to corporate families in the United States and abroad provided by the Lexis-Nexis Group. The Mergers and Acquistions Activity page lists CorporateAffiliations.com companies which have merged, changed names, or gone out of business. Users may search within a specific time frame (within the past 1, 2, 3, 4 weeks, or within 1 year) or they may access the archives, which go as far back as 1976.) The FAQ's page is also available without charge. A free trial subscription to the full site is available from the home page.     CorporateInformation http://www.corporateinformation.com/ "Focuses on providing access to Web-based information on companies throughout the world." Searchable by country, company name and industry. Gives recent news and fast facts for each country, links to sources of company information, a list of and definitions of extensions (such as Inc.) found after company names, and research reports for 15,000 companies. Profiles of some companies are also offered in French and Spanish. "A good starting point to find corporate information from around the world."     EDGAR Database http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml This site will allow you to retrieve publicly available electronic filings submitted by corporations to the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1993 to the present. Non-electronic filings, filings that are not available to the public, and any data prior to 1993 will not be available here.     Fortune 500 http://www.fortune.com/fortune/fortune500/ This site lists almost all you ever wanted to know about the Fortune 500 including the current list of companies, lists of the CEO's, Industry Medians, and Top Performers.     FreeEDGAR http://www.freeedgar.com/ Free online access to SEC filings. Searchable by company name or SIC code. Reports can be viewed online or turned into downloadable Excel spreadsheets. Also includes "in-depth financial analysis based on FreeEDGAR financial data" and "basic information on finance and investing."     Industry Information Resources http://www.valuationresources.com/IndustryReport.htm “Industry Information Resources is a free resource which covers more than 250 industries. Individual pages for each of these industries list resources available from trade associations, industry publications, and research firms which address subjects such as industry overview, issues, trends and outlook, financial benchmarking, compensation surveys, and valuation resources. Each entry in a category contains the name of the source organization, the name of the particular resource, a hyperlink to the source organization website, a brief description of the resources, and a description of any information that is provided free online.” Industries include: Agriculture, Fishing, and Forestry, Mining and Construction, Manufacturing, Transportation, Warehousing, Communications and Utilities, Wholesalers, Retailers, Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate, and Personal and Business Services.     Industry Research Desk http://www.virtualpet.com/industry/rdindex2.htm "Provides tools for researching specific companies, industries, and manufacturing processes. For business researchers not yet familiar with the internet, a brief 'Introduction to the Internet' is provided." An excellent place to begin when looking for company information on the Internet.     ISO 9000 Translated into Plain English http://www.praxiom.com/ "This website discusses the ISO 9000 quality standards. It discusses both requirements and guidelines. ISO's requirements include ISO 9001, ISO 9002, and ISO 9003. And ISO's guidelines include ISO 9000, ISO 9004, ISO 10011, and ISO 10013. For the benefit of those who appreciate clarity, [the site's creators] have translated these requirements and guidelines into plain English." The standards are only summarized on the site, but publications that provide more detail are available for purchase.     ISO Online http://www.iso.ch/ Information from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), including the ISO catalog of standards, ISO Technical Committees, ISO member bodies and meeting schedules. An ISO 9000 News Service is provided, along with a section, "What's New at ISO." There is also a list of links to online information from national standards bodies of about 20 countries.     Lycos Yellow Pages http://yp.lycos.com/ This site provides information about over 100,000 U.S. companies. Browse or search to retrieve profiles that include name, city, state, mailing address, industry, ticker symbol, URLs, and links to latest stock quotes.     Manufacturing Marketplace http://www.manufacturing.net/ Manufacturing Marketplace is "one of the Internet's most comprehensive sites tailored to engineering, design, purchasing, logistics and distribution professionals." Free registration provides access to associations, tradeshows, new products, and news. A major feature of the site is a searchable directory of products and services, suppliers, and trade names. In addition, selected articles are available from a dozen highly targeted trade journals.     North American Industry Classification System http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/naics.html "The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is replacing the U.S. Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system. NAICS will reshape the way we view our changing economy." The site explains how NAICS will affect data users with correspondence tables that can take you from SIC to NAICS or vice versa. There are also sections on the development and implementation of NAICS.     Researching Companies Online http://www.learnwebskills.com/company/ "This business research tutorial presents a step-by-step process for finding FREE company and industry information on the World Wide Web. Accurate and timely information is essential for any business to remain competitive. With the Internet, you can gather a tremendous amount of business intelligence information on prospects, competitors, vendors, suppliers, customers, or other companies in just a few hours."     Trade Show News Network http://www.tsnn.com/ "The Trade Show News Network at TSNN.com provides a one-stop shop for thousands of leading trade shows, including event descriptions, dates, locations, histories, press releases, exhibitor lists, attendee demographics, and conference info." Search for worldwide conferences and trade shows in mnay industries and professions. There are also searches for exhibitors and suppliers.